


Memento Mori

by DemiGoddess



Series: Sanguine Dreams: Rowen [10]
Category: Original Work, Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Blood, Caitiff - Freeform, F/F, Historical, Introspection, Kindred, Old Movies, Thoughts of Mortality, character backstory, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 21:30:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16272734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiGoddess/pseuds/DemiGoddess
Summary: On her fortieth birthday, Olivia reflects on her relationship with her vampire wife: Rowen.





	Memento Mori

The journal is worn. The once pristine cover littered with scribblings of what appear to be roots and flowers, drawn in what is clearly two different hands. The inside cover marks it as belonging to someone named “Olivia.”

\-----

[August 27, 1939]

I found a silver hair on my brush this morning.

It was my fortieth birthday today, and no sooner did I wake up than I found that small, glistening reminder of the passing years. It would’ve been comical in its timing, if it weren’t so sobering.

I had been pondering the gossamer strand when Rowen appeared behind me to drape her arms around my shoulders in a lazy embrace. I was sitting in front of my mirror but still could not see her coming until she wished me to.

Show off.

“Happy birthday Livvy,” she spoke softly into my ear, punctuating the use of her pet name for me with a gentle kiss. “Is it possible tha ye somehow even more bonnie than yesterday?” She smiled into the words and kissed down my neck, letting the barest hint of her fangs caress me. I shivered with delight and a tinge of fear.

“Sadly impossible, for a hideous crime has scarred me!” I replied with a smirk dripping in sarcasm. “See for yourself!” I leaned my head back over the chair to look at her, brandishing the gray hair as though it were the smoking gun at the scene of a murder. I touched my hand to my forehead, like one of those women of weak constitution in a dime novel. I could see around my wrist that she must have been in the midst of undressing. She still wore her gray trousers, but from her belt upwards I could take in her lithe, pristine form and supple breasts.

My heart fluttered in my chest. Seeing such beauty, one could easily forget that she was even older than me! Yet, she looked not a day past twenty-five.

Drat, thoughts of mortality again.

Rowen snatched the hair from my proffered hand and held it in front of her in the manner of Hamlet clutching the skull of poor Yorick. “How dare ye!” She shook the hair as though throttling someone. “Makin’ my Olivia feel like she be anythin other than rightly and completely fookin’ stunnin!” She side-eyed me then, a fanged grin on her lips. “Though she ought tae know already tha nothin, and I mean nothin, can change how beautiful she is! Or how absolutely mental I am for her...” She winked.

I stood quickly, seizing her by her tantalizingly bared hips. She let out a small yelp in surprise. My hair fell to the floor, forgotten in the hungry kiss I took from her. 

“You are utterly ridiculous, my flower.” I pull her close so that I may look up into her blue eyes. “Aren’t vampires supposed to be dark and seductive?”

She makes a show of looking deep in thought, finger to her chin. “Och lass! I may nah be broody like Bela Lugosi, but I’ve gottae be at least a little bit seductive tae keep ye in the same bed fer seven years!”

I smiled, then. Seven years. It has often been said that time flies by with someone you love. In defiance of this, I savored each moment of that time. I took each precious moment, studied them, felt them, and tucked them into labeled velvet boxes in the recesses of my memory. I knew there were many years ahead of us. However, as my breast felt the lack of heartbeat in her own, I also knew that her… existence would continue without me someday. If that old proverb holds true, despite my small rebellion, it must hold doubly true for vampires. It may not be so now, but surely there will come a time that Rowen thinks of seven years as no more than a flash of distant lightning in the night.

I’ll have to remember that metaphor for my next novel. Into the box it goes.

“That is true. However, surely wish an end to that, because despite your banter I see no trace of a present for this most important day!” I said this with a musical lilt and with the sarcasm I could muster, but still regretted saying it. Too harsh. The fatalism lingered in me it seemed. 

Rowen, perhaps seeing the regret in my eyes, took it in stride. “Well lass!” She responded with mock offense. “If’n ye can keep yer dress down fer the day ye might just see a gift come on down!” She stepped back to stretch and unbuckle her trousers. “Serious like, though. I’ve a mite of a surprise for ye this evenin’. Was oot all nicht getting it all proper made for ye though and the sun’s aboot up. So, yer ‘ridiculous’ and not at all seductive vampire wife needs tae grab a wink.” She then looked back over her shoulder as her pants dropped, a darker smile on her lips before.

The display was immensely tempting, but I had many errands to run to prepare for the evening and a chapter in my novel to finish.

She shook her rump playfully.

Nevermind. That could wait.

\--------------------

Our life has somehow reached an easy rhythm. It has not always been so, obviously. It was an ordeal figuring out how to see enough of each other when Rowen was strictly nocturnal. We eventually worked out the best times for each of us to awaken and fall asleep, and I have structured my life such that I can spend a few days a week awake for the entire night. 

Rowen was apologetic at first. She told me that she felt selfish, asking me to restructure my life when the greatest change she had to make was registering for identification. She got the sad puppy look in her eyes, which she was unaware of back then but has since weaponized (leading to more than a few delayed chapters on my part). It was difficult, but we both knew that her lethal aversion to the sun was inflexible, so I did it for her.

My moonflower. Blooming only at night.

In many ways, we must seem an ill fit for each other from the outside. In my secret dalliances I generally prefer women who play to their femininity, much like myself. I must admit a certain eroticism in our skirts brushing and tangling together on the bed. Rowen is not this sort of woman, clad as she always is in men’s trousers and a paige’s cap. She is also boisterous and of cheerful demeanor. I fancy myself the calm, cool, and collected sort, though Rowen often takes the time to say that my eyes burn when I speak of matters of justice.

Indeed, Rowen seems to see many things in me I cannot not see in myself. Being born of the streets as she was, I suspect she learned very quickly to ascertain the important details of a person -- to boil someone down to their essential nature. She speaks quite frequently of my beauty, which I take no small pride in I must admit, but also of my ability to show her things. She says I opened up so many new avenues for her. I can only hope this is actually true, and not a product of her heretofore limited lifestyle. I would see to at that she see as much of the world as possible, free of squalor and poverty, even when I have passed and she continues.

My thoughts return to the gray hair. Musn’t dwell.

In the evening, upon the completion of my shopping and her awakening, she unveiled my gift.

“Right then! Sorry it’s nae wrapped up all bonnie and festive like… but feast yer eyes lass!” Rowen had taken one of our blankets to cover the device, which she pulled away dramatically. “Sorry it took a mite tae get here, but I had tae finish payin oot big to some rich Toreador bampot tae get it delivered.”

It was… a small film projector?

I was overcome, both with appreciation and confusion. While we share the windfall of my inheritance, projectors are quite costly. Prohibitively so. She also acquired the reels for Wuthering Heights. No small feat, given its recent release.

Films have always been a constant in our lives since their inception. Our first proper outing was to see A Farewell to Arms. The medium excites me in its exploration of new forms of writing. Rowen claims they help keep her close to humanity. 

“Rowen, love, this is… amazing but can we even use it?”

She was already fitting the film reels in. “Never fear, lass, I’m quick on the uptake!” She said with a wink. “Care tae join me for a moving picture, madame?” She followed with a flourish and her attempt at an upper-class accent.

How could I say no to that?

We spent the evening watching Wuthering Heights, boisterously adding our own witticisms to the film that would have most assuredly gotten us removed from the theater (the male lead was a delight in his unbelievable melodrama). 

I thought that, perhaps, this would not be a bad way to spend forever.

\-----------------

[August 28, 1939]

I must admit at this point that I am shaken despite Rowen’s heartfelt reassurances. My birthday has come and passed, a wonderful evening with my wife spent. Yet as I sat tending my small garden on the balcony of our flat (the violets are doing well), I once again found my thoughts drawn to the hair, that vicious memento mori. 

I have been adamant in the past on the matter of retaining my humanity. Rowen has said that she would “embrace” me if I wished it, but also harshly warned of the dangers of joining her kind. I know that her comment on “some Toreador bampot” was not in fact a reference to Spanish bullfighting, but to some faction among vampires. She has been tight-lipped on exact details, but I know the relationship we share is nominally forbidden among their kind, so the secrecy is understandable I suppose. Still, my curiosity is piqued by what troubles the mind of an immortal. My will to remain human wavers.

I suppose I should’ve been frightened by the revelation of the reality of creatures that stalk the night, but I’ve never considered fear sufficient cause to deter learning. Indeed, when Rowen first told me her secret, she seemed more afraid of ME than I of her! It was a similar situation when I first shared my blood with her. She does not take from me often, but suffice it to say, it is always as pleasurable as that first time. Oh to feel her tremble with need and hunger against me! But such thoughts are for later.

I once asked her if becoming a vampire was worth it. She told me that few ever have a choice in the matter, and that she did not. Indeed, the one who made her abandoned her immediately, which apparently makes her a pariah in the society of immortals. 

I would very much like to give that wayward creature a piece of my mind.

She did continue to say that her life before was not much different than the vagabond lifestyle she led until meeting me. Indeed, in such a difficult situation, she considered the manifold abilities of the vampire to be a boon! Strange to think that one’s life might be improved post-mortem, though I suppose they tell us so in church each sunday (I no longer attend).

I doubt such is the case with myself, and I now find my will to live strengthening.

Still.

That silver strand torments me.

\---------------------

[August 29, 1939]

I had a dream last night.

I was lying in our bed, motionless in the dark. I could not move. I could not see. I was utterly frozen. I felt my blood leaving through the bite marks in my neck. Red spilling indefinitely into the void. The room began to flood.

I told Rowen when I awoke, and also reiterated the worries I have told you over the past few days, dear journal. Forgive me for my indiscretion, We spoke for hours. The sun rose, though one could not tell through the protective measures of our bedroom. Feeling her soft limbs around me, devoid of pulse but not of warmth, helped immensely. However, we both had to concede that we might have to both think more about the future, rather than keeping our relationship in the fashion of the whirlwind romance of our youth. 

She also confided in me her own worries of mortality: of aging to the point where those she cares for pass on, of what to do should her own life become too long and laden with memory to bear. Recall that while she does not show her age, her years are a mere few beyond my own, well within a human’s lifetime. She also worries that we may be tempting fate. Secrets can only be kept so long, and while the Animal within her is relatively tame in my presence, it is by no means without danger.

A more earthly worry: the trouble brewing on the continent threatens to drag Great Britain into war, and war spares neither human nor undead. Rowen met her first death during the Great War, and I would see to it that another not take more from us.

Despite these concerns, I find myself comforted. There is much vigor in me yet. We are to have a future together, my immortal wife and I. And as we sat, two women caressing in the dark, I thought perhaps that a death poised at the end of a life well lived would be something I would welcome when the time comes.

We’ll meet it together.


End file.
